Aston Martin and Zagato team up again for Pebble Beach

And then there were four. Now there’s an Aston Martin Vanquish for every occasion.

Aston Martin

The Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake is the latest in a line of two-seat Aston Martin wagons. Just 99 will be made.

Aston Martin

But the Vanquish Zagato Speedster is even more exclusive—only 28 of these roofless V12s will be conjured out of aluminum and carbon fiber.

Aston Martin

Instead of a soft top, you get those aerodynamic cowls behind the seats.

Aston Martin

If the Speedster is too extreme, how about the Vanquish Zagato Volante?

Aston Martin

The cabin isn’t changed much compared to the “regular” Vanquish.

Aston Martin

Lots of Zs everywhere, including the grill.

Aston Martin

Those tail lights are almost as wild as the ones on the Vulcan.

Aston Martin

The car that started it all, the DB4 GT Zagato. Opinions vary, but I think it’s the most beautiful car ever made.

Which is why there’s another photo of one here.

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The DB4 Zagato’s interior. We’ve come a long way.

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The DB4 GT (pictured) got the Zagato treatment because it needed to lose weight to compete on the race track.

Aston Martin

Next up was the V8 Zagato of the 1980s. This one’s looks divide opinion.

National Motor Museum/Heritage Images/Getty Images

Not a Zagato, but another Aston Martin Shooting Brake.

Aston Martin

The next Aston Martin Zagato was the DB7.

The DB AR1 was even more ungainly and, like the Speedster, has no roof.

In 2011, it was the Vantage’s turn to get Zagatoed.

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The build-up to this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance continues apace. Yesterday was Infiniti’s turn, with its gorgeous, retro-styled electric Prototype 9 concept car, while today the headlines go to Aston Martin. Once again, the British carmaker teamed up with Italian design house Zagato, this time on a pair of limited-edition versions of a rather old model: the Vanquish Zagato Speedster and Vanquish Zagato Shooting Brake.

That now makes a total of four different Zagato-bodied versions of the venerable GT car, for the two companies have previously collaborated on a Vanquish Zagato Coupe and Vanquish Zagato Volante (which means “convertible” in Aston Martinese).

Now a second open-top version is available. The Speedster is strictly for sunny days, with no convertible roof to speak of, just a pair of streamlined cowls behind the driver and passenger seats.

The Shooting Brake (a two-door wagon by another name) is, to me, the more interesting of the pair. Sadly, the company has only shared a single photo of it so far, but it takes the Vanquish Zagato Coupe shape and extends the roof back to the rear of the car. This arrangement gives the Brake a (relatively) vast luggage space behind its two-seat cabin. All four of the Vanquish Zagatos are bodied in carbon fiber and are liberally plastered with Zagato’s “Z” logo.

It started in the ‘60s

The relationship between Aston Martin and Zagato goes back almost six decades, starting with a car that some—your author included—think might be the best-looking thing on four wheels, period. The DB4 GT was struggling to beat the front-engined sports cars from arch rival Ferrari, in no small part thanks to its excess weight. So in 1960, Aston Martin sent some DB4 GT chassis to Zagato in Italy to get the lightweight (or superleggera) treatment. Unfortunately, the DB4 GT Zagato turned out to be prettier than it was fast, and only 20 were built. (That is, until 1988, when four more DB4 chassis were used to create so-called “Sanction II” cars, and then a further two “Sanction III” cars were made in 2000.)

Next up was 1986’s V8 Zagato, an angular wedge of a thing that couldn’t have looked less like the curvy DB4 GT Zagato if it tried. The looks may be controversial—I happen to be fan—but the performance was spectacular for the time. Few other cars in 1986 could hit 186mph (300km/h), and Aston Martin had no trouble selling 52 coupes and another 37 Volantes.

Then came the DB7 Zagato, introduced at Pebble Beach in 2002. Unlike the slightly frumpy DB4 GT, the DB7 was already quite the looker, and Zagato’s touch didn’t do much to improve the underlying car. Despite that, 99 were sold, followed a year later by 99 DB AR1s. This was a US-market roadster, devoid of any roof and meant for a life underneath the sunny skies of California.

In 2011, it was the turn of the Vantage to get the Zagato treatment. In total, 150 Aston Martin V12 Zagatos were built, and several were raced by the factory at the Nürburgring 24-Hour Race in 2011 and 2012.

Which brings us back to the present. All told, there will be a total of 325 Vanquish Zagatos when all is said and done; 99 each of the Coupe, Volante, and Shooting Brake, and just 28 Speedsters. The cheapest of these is the Coupe, at a little under $300,000. All of them have already been sold, except for the Shooting Brake, which doesn’t go into production until next year.